Libya: Ajdabiya under fire as rebels flee
Rebels told Nick Meo that the road to Ajdabiya was clear. How wrong they were,
The rebel mechanic looked up from the bonnet of his broken-down truck, ten miles from Ajdabiya, and said the way ahead was clear. "Our forces have pushed Gaddafi back miles beyond that," he said with an oil-smeared grin.
The first sign he was wrong was a barrage of rockets, exploding uncomfortably close to the hospital in the town centre as casualties were being unloaded from the morning's fighting.
Rebels who had screeched up to the hospital entrance with wounded comrades screeched out again in a melee of revving engines and shouting men, as gunfire sounded a few streets away; nobody knew what it was, but a group of doctors having a quick cigarette break looked scared.
The town's civilians, who had just started to trickle back from the tents where they had been camped in the safety of the desert, jumped into cars and lorries, heading out in a panicky evacuation – for the umpteenth time in the past month, in many cases.
Not everybody was fleeing: tough, determined-looking men in camouflage fatigues hurriedly unloaded weapons and ammunition from trucks; they were preparing to fight.
In the hospital grounds a lone boy sat in a bus waiting for his father, calmly watching as panicking drivers rushed past him, beeping and shouting at each other to get out of the way. A few minutes later Muhammed Muktar, 42, his father, rushed out panting and jumped into the bus to drive it away to safety.
"I was giving blood and trying to help," he said, wincing as rockets fell a few streets away. "My family only came back today to see if it was safe, and now look at this we have come back to."
The conversation was terminated by another rocket barrage, this time much louder than before and sounding closer.
By now cars were rushing out of town past the hospital, driving fast and swerving around potholes. Three boys flagged down a passing pickup and jumped in the back, desperate to get away.
The centre of the city, still bullet-scarred from Gaddafi's brief occupation two weeks ago, was a trap and everyone knew it.
More than once rebels, refugees and foreign journalists have been caught by Gaddafi forces encircling the city by driving along the ring road, closing on anyone who hadn't escaped fast enough.
On a brief, manic dash to the safety of the outskirts The Sunday Telegraph passed rebels firing salvoes of rockets into the sky towards their enemy, and terrified families stuck in a traffic jam next to them; Libyans believe the Gaddafi forces are rapists, and several cars were full of women and girls who looked hysterical.
On the northern fringe of the city, hundreds of cars and lorries streamed past driving north to Benghazi, many packed with people and possessions; like the mechanic they had thought Ajdabiya was safe again and Gaddafi was some way off. One lorry, its tyres gone on the left-hand side, drove on its wheel rims, swerving crazily all over the road surface.
The city of 100,000 people, 90 minutes drive south of Benghazi, is a substantial one which the rebels simply must hold. It is a key road junction located near oilfields and oil infrastructure that the rebels need if their uprising is to survive.
The civilians who had ventured back that morning were testing their own courage and their faith in the rebel defences.
For weeks their leaders have been telling them that they have moved up properly trained fighters to the front and their military position was improving. But fleeing civilians were scathing about their own fighters.
"They have no organisation," said Salah Selini, 47, gesturing at a car full of young boys who waved their guns out of the car window as they passed and shouted "---- Gaddafi".
"They have no leader and they panic all the time," he said. Mr Selini looked disgusted. "We will never win like this."
Looking back at the city, a mile away, a black plume of smoke rose from its far side. We could hear the whooshes of outgoing rockets and the sickening crump of explosions in its streets.
Rebels, angry at running away yet again, insisted there were spies giving away their positions. Right on cue, a puff of black smoke exploded in the sky above a concentration of rebel vehicles.
"Some Gaddafi spy fired a rocket to show where our fighters are," a young rebel yelled.
Then a man shouted that everyone should get off the road. "A helicopter gunship is coming this way and we don't know if it is a rebel one or Gaddafi's," he said. Our safe position suddenly felt very exposed.
The Sunday Telegraph drove off north at high speed, spotting the menacing outline of a Hind helicopter flying low, south over the desert parallel to the road about a mile away.
As we looked back at the plumes of smoke and mayhem of the latest battle of Ajdabiya, where the gunship was heading, there was no sign of rebel defences.
